Emily and Katherine have a computer upstairs (a Gateway to be exact). Because she is brilliant, Emily somehow figured out how to put a username and password on it so that when you boot up, before you can do anything else, you have to enter a password. Great, right? Not so great though when you completely forget the password.
I like to think of myself as somewhat "computer savvy" but this one has me stumped. I re-booted and hit F1 to get to the settings and went to the security tab. One of the options was "clear user password" which I tried to do and it didn't clear. I also tried just using the Gateway restoration disk and booting from the CD, but it said something about NT files and that I couldn't boot from the CD because of that.
I can't seem to think of what else to do (I even tried entering random passwords to see if it would eventually error and just do whatever but that didn't work either.
So all my technical people...any suggestions?
What version of Windows?
ReplyDeleteIf XP, does it come to a screen with an icon and a password box, or does it bring up a dialog box with two lines for a name and a password?
In short, if it's XP, you probably have a user named administrator that you never even knew existed, and it probably has a password of blank. The trick is to log on as administrator, then go mess with any other user accounts that might need changing.
Is this a Bios password or a windows password? Does the windows screen com up first then it asks for the password, Or does it ask for a password before it does anything else? If its not what Jay Said above then there should be a Jumper on the board that you can use to reset the bios, Or you can remove the little watch battery on the motherboard and unplug the computer for a while. This should also reset the bios.
ReplyDeleteThis is only if the windows logo doesn't come up before it asks for the password.